READING

Paper 1 Part 2

Gapped text

You are going to read an extract from a magazine article. Six paragraphs have been removed from the extract. Choose from the paragraphs A-G the one hich best fits each gap !"#12$. %here is one extra paragraph that &ou do not need to use.

The story of the lamb-plant

'ccording to a recent surve&( ") per cent of ten#&ear#olds living in Scotland*s big cities thin+ that cotton comes from sheep. ,t*s eas& enough to mista+e the soft hite stuff sold in fluff& balls in plastic bags at the local chemist*s shop or supermar+et ith the curl& stuff on a sheep*s bac+( especiall& hen the onl& sheep &ou*ve seen are in boo+s or on the %-. 7. .umours had first begun to circulate a& bac+ in the /iddle 'ges. %he borametz( also +no n as the *lamb#plant*( as said to exist in %artar&( a far#a a& land stretching across 0astern 0urope and 'sia. 1one of those ho told the various tales had actuall& seen it( but the&*d al a&s met men ho had. 8. %he man responsible for spreading the stor& in 2ritain as 3ohn /andeville( a +night of 0ngland ho left home in 1422( and for the next 45 &ears travelled about the orld to man& diverse countries. 6is account of hat he sa as the medieval e7uivalent of a bestseller( and as translated into ever& 0uropean language. 6e rote that he too had seen a t&pe of fruit that hen opened( proved to contain a small hite creature that loo+ed in ever& a& to be a lamb. 9. %his as apparentl& proof enough for /andeville and those ho passed on the stor&. 8ith each telling( the stor& gained ne details and greater credibilit&. 2ut in the 19th and 1"th centuries( people learned more about the orld and its inhabitants. 's doubts crept in( more sceptical travellers set out in search of the m&sterious lamb of %artar&. 10. 'nd so it ent on. 's soon as an&one voiced doubts( someone else popped up ith ne *evidence* of the lamb*s existence. ,n 19):( ;renchman Claude <uret devoted a hole chapter of a boo+ on plants to the borametz. 2ut then( =) &ears later( the great traveller 0ngelbrecht >aempfer ent east loo+ing for it. 6e found nothing but ordinar& sheep. %he number of believers as d indling( and in ?ondon the reno ned scientific academ&( the .o&al Societ&( decided it as time to *+ill off@ the borametz for good. 11. %his( the Societ& rec+oned( as hat had started the ancient rumours. %he& proclaimed it to be a *specimen* of a borametz( in fact. 6ans Sloane( founder of the 2ritish /useum( described the specimen in a contemporar& publicationA it as made from the root of a tree fern( had four legs and a head and seemed to be shaped b& nature to imitate a lamb. %he four#footed fa+e also had * ool* of a dar+ golden &ello . <espite this discrepanc& in the colour of its fleece( the .o&al Societ& considered the case closed.

12. %he ans er as there all along in the ritings of ancient travellers. 8hile researching his boo+ Sea Monsters Unmasked( the observant 6enr& ?ee +ept coming across detailed descriptions of plants that sounded far more li+e the protot&pe borametz. %he .o&al Societ&( ?ee decided( had failed to spot the obvious connection and had settled for something so unli+el& it had to be rong. 8hat so man& had imagined to be a m&thical animal in fact turned out to be ordinar& cotton.

A 'nd so it as( more or less( for 1=) &ears. %hen a little +no n naturalist pointed out that their so#called *original* lamb#plant as a false clue. %here as( ho ever( a plant that had almost certainl& given rise to the notion of the borametz. %here*s certainl& doubt as to hether this as based on first#hand experience( but the contemporar& guideboo+s ere certainl& available. ' fe &ears earlier( a mon+ ho came from a monaster& near Padua( rote that *there gro fruits( hich hen the& are ripe and open( displa& a little beast much li+e a &oung lamb*. 6e claimed he had heard this from reliable sources. ! %he best a&( it felt( as b& sho ing people ho the idea had begun. ,t as then luc+& enough to suddenl& receive a curious obBect from China( a sort of to& animal made from a plant ith a fe extra bits stuc+ on to give it a proper number of limbs. D ,n some versions the *vegetable lambs* ere the fruits of a tree that gre from a round seed. 8hen the fruits ripened( the& burst open to reveal tin& lambs ith soft hite fleeces that the natives used to ma+e their cloth. ,n others( the seed gave rise to a hite lamb that gre on a stal+ rooted in the ground( and lived b& grazing on an& plants it could reach. E %here*s less excuse for the generations of explorers( scholars and philosophers ho ere perhaps even more naCve. %he& ere all happ& to accept the stor& that the soft fibres from hich eastern people ove fine hite cloth came( in fact( from a creature that as half#plant( half#animal. " <istorted descriptions of the cotton plants seen in ,ndia preceded the actual plants b& man& &ears. ,n the meantime( traders brought samples of cotton * ool* along trade routes that passed through %artar lands. %o those ho had never seen ra cotton( this fine D%artar ool* loo+ed li+e something that might come from the fleece of a lamb. G Still it eluded them( &et most came home convinced that it existed. Ene of these as a po erful baron ho represented the 6ol& .oman 0mpire at the .ussian court. %he baron had dismissed the sheep#on#a#stal+ as fable until he heard the creature described b& a *person in high authorit&* hose father had once been an envo& to the >ing of %artar&. %he stor& as enough to convince the baron.